And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
by Cassima
Summary: A previous incarnation of the inners, set in Australia during WWI


And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda  And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda By [Cassima][1]

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon... I wish I did... "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" is property of Eric Bogle.

Rating: PG-13 to R for violent war images!! If this is not your cup of tea, halt, stop, cease, and desist from reading any more!

Summary: One of the lives of Sailor Jupiter. Pre-SM

Author's note: This story is based on the theory that, when Queen Serenity sent the Senshi to live in the future, they ended up in a few different places before Tokyo. The song, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", is about an Australian during WWI who goes off to battle in Gallipoli (I believe it's in Italy, but don't quote me on that) and comes back missing something. And yes, I know they didn't let women fight. For my purposes, though, they do, okay? Yeah, that's what I thought. ::g:: 

Author's Warning: THIS HAS NOT BEEN BETA-ED!!! Read at your own risk!!!

_"If those were my last words, I can do better."_

--Mulder, "The Red and The Black", _The X-Files_

_When I was a young man, I carried a pack,  
And I lived the free life of a rover.  
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty Outback,  
I waltzed my Matilda all over.  
Then in 1915, my country said, "Son,  
It's time to stop rambling; there's work to be done."  
And they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,  
And sent me away to the war._

And the band played Waltzing Matilda  
As our ship pulled away from the Quay;  
And amidst all the cheers, flag-waving, and tears,  
We set off for Gallipoli.

I bowed low before my princess, eyes tearing up. "I promise you, I won't let you die!"

"Don't go!" the golden haired beauty cried. "You can't protect me if you're dead!"

"I won't die," I promised steadily. "But I have to protect my country!" I hugged her, hard. "I have to protect YOU, and what you stand for." I let my precious Princess go before turning back to my other friends, some traveling with me, some staying behind. "Stay safe," I wished wholeheartedly.

Ami threw herself at me, tears flowing. "I wish I was going, too..."

"Don't! You have to stay behind with Usagi... so she'll always have someone."

She looked aside uneasily. "The government wants to ship me to America, to help design a weapon. I..." she swallowed.

I looked at my comrades in arms as Ami realized she had nothing else to say: Rei, Mamoru, and Minako. "It's time to go."

_Oh, well I remember the terrible day  
When our blood stained the sand and the waters,  
And how, in that Hell-hole we called Suvla Bay,  
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.  
Johnny Turk, he was waiting, and he'd primed himself well;  
He showered us with bullets, he'd rained us with shell,  
And in ten minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell:  
Nearly blew us back home to Australia._

And the band played Waltzing Matilda  
As we stopped to bury the slain.  
Well we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,  
And we started all over again.

War was the worst thing I'd ever imagined. "Johnny Turk", as our Turkish enemies were commonly named, was relentless in his efforts to kill us.

I hated every minute of it.

I kept wishing I was back home in Australia with Usagi, or in America with Ami, or even in England with those damn proud Englishmen.

Rei was the first of us to go. Her fighting spirit was the greatest of any of ours, but she just had too much steel in her blood. Backing down was simply not her style, and we all knew it. I may be as tough as her, maybe tougher, at times, but I always know when I can't win the fight. And when they were looking for volunteers to go on that Mission, we all knew that Rei was out for blood.

We just never expected that it would be hers that was spattered all over.

That's when it finally began to hit us hard. I began to drink, rather excessively, and write long letters to Ami, who I hoped was faring much better than we all were. From Usagi's letters, I knew she was getting involved in the war effort by volunteering to be a nurse and making socks and other stuff that we just didn't have the time or energy to do anymore, but I wondered how she was really taking the news. She was so close to Rei... we all were.

Mamoru sunk into a depression that didn't involve the consumption of un-godly amounts of alchohol, so it didn't interest me as much as it should have at first. Being so far from his true love, his princess, went against so much of his grain that he spent most of his free time writing long, involved letters to his Usagi. His writing almost held a diary-like quality to it; his feelings, hopes, events in his day, etc, went down on those pages. Oh, I made sure he kept the most gruesome details out; no need to shock the poor girl, but the stuff that haunted us every day seemed to have greater effect when written down and read thousands of miles away.

Minako went insane. She had been right at Rei's side when the burning scrap metal had split our friend's neck, and began to become unhinged at the fringes of her mind starting from that point. Minako and Rei had always shared something important, a friendship so deep the rest of us could barely imagine it in our wildest fantasies, and that somehow seemed to be her undoing. She grew increasingly deadened to the world, smoking more than even me at times, and her temperment became calm to the point where it chilled both Mamoru and I to be around her.

_Oh, the lads that were left--well, we tried to survive  
In a mad world of blood, death, and fire,  
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive  
Whilst around me the corpses piled higher.  
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse-over-head,  
And when I awoke in my hospital bed,  
I saw what it had done--well, I wished I were dead;  
I never knew there were worse things than dying._

For I'll go no more Waltzing Matilda  
All around the green bush far and free,  
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs;  
No more waltzing Matilda for me.

I believe that hospital stay was the worst eight weeks of my life. I learned that my Prince had been killed in the blast, and I awoke two weeks after that to a letter stating that my Princess had killed herself upon recieving the news.

Minako was alive, thankfully, but her mental health was not good. She had definitely traversed into the plains of insanity, and I wished fervently for news from Ami. I hadn't recieved any for months, and I wondered if she had become too busy to write or if her letters had gotten lost or what. I desperately needed to see the comforting, neat handwriting of her, proof that I wasn't the only one of us left, proof that, even though my beautiful, long legs were gone, that I was still me, Makoto, and there was still a cause to be fighting for. I needed to hear from someone who knew me...

But I also didn't. I was ashamed of my sudden deformity. I, who had been the most atheltic of us all, who could both run and cook circles around us...

I, who was once the tallest of all of us, rivaling even Mamoru with height...

I, who was once strong and quick...

What was I now? My identity was gone.

About seven weeks into my stay, I recieved a bundle of letters from the Americas.

They were all the letters that I had sent to Ami, unopened.

A chill ran down my spine.

A note from one of her colluegues was attached, stating that he was very sorry, but she had been killed a while back in an "auto accident".

I wept for what seemed like the first and last time. We were all dead.

_They collected the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,  
And shipped us back home to Australia.  
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane;  
The brave wounded heros of Suvla.  
And when our ship pulled into Circular Quay  
I looked at the place where my legs used to be  
I thanked Christ there was no one there waiting for me  
To grieve and to mourn and to pity._

And the band played Waltzing Matilda  
As they carried us down the gangway.  
But nobody cheered--they just stood and stared,  
And turned all their faces away.

I was "compensated" for my "losses" by the government, but it wasn't nearly enough. I didn't even feel marginally better. I couldn't get a job; no one was looking for a crippled chef, and I wasn't really enthusiastic about selling my services to people who couldn't look me in the eye because they were too busy staring at my stumps.

I only visited Minako a few times in the hospital before I couldn't take it anymore. It just wasn't her; it hurt too much. Everytime I looked into the eyes of the stranger in Minako's body, all I saw was the deaths of everybody I loved. Even the deaths I had never seen; I could still picture the way Ami's delicate body looked, crushed beneath all that glass and twisted metal. The brightest mind in both Australia and possibly the world, wasted in a foreign land, far away from anyone who cared about her beautiful soul.

I could see the body of my Princess in those empty eyes, floating in a bathtub, wrists slashed, body stained a dark pink from the bloody water it had been floating in. Her life had been taken so she could avoid the insanity that afflicted Minako, so that she could be reborn and allow all of us to be with her, all except I, too chicken to take my own life. I missed her; her sunny smile, her bright outlook, her light. At least she died in her homeland.

I could see Mamoru's body, twisted and broken, skin seared and blackened, dying for a love that had purified us all. Dying to protect our Light. I'm realize that I'm waxing poetic, but I could see all this in those dead eyes. It seemed to call for something less everyday, less technical. Their deaths deserve poetry, not a pale reflection of their worst moments in some stranger's eyes.

I could see Rei's death, the sudden cutting of her life thread that changed our lives faster than we could blink. Those few moments in time were seared into my mind; my dreams reflected this, and I dreamt about her death at least once a week in horrible, graphic detail. It comforted me that at least she died surrounded by her friends.

I could see the death of the spirit of Minako; the disappearance of her soul, its joining to the other's.

I was envious.

_So now every April I sit on my porch  
And watch the Parade pass before me.  
And I see me old comrades--how proudly they march,  
Reliving old dreams and past glories.  
The old men march slowly, their bones stiff and sore.  
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war;  
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"  
And I ask myself the same question._

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda,  
And the old men, they answer the call.  
But year after year, their numbers grow fewer...  
Someday no one'll march there at all...

And I'm old. Soon I'll die. I'm glad. Maybe next time, we'll have our powers back, and when there is evil to be fought, we'll be strong enough to fight.

I love my Princess. I'd die for her, but this is the last time I sacrifice my friends for my country.

_Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,  
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me...  
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass by that billabong...  
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me._

If you liked these lyrics and want to hear this and other post WWI songs, get the CD "Battlefields of Green".

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